382 



Erlcstoke and its Manor Lords. 



place-names, or substituted for other identifications. In "Wiltshire 

 we have the example of Winterbourne Earls, called after the Earl 

 of Sarum, but as a rule the title was a prefix. In Shropshire Earls 

 Ditton took its name from the Earl of March, seigneur of the 

 lordship of Mortimer, to which it belonged ; in Yorkshire Earls 

 Heaton from William, Earl of Warren, Earls Sterndale from 

 William Ferrers, Earl of Derby, and Earlesburgh from Allan, Earl 

 of Eichmond ; in Worcestershire Earls Cromb from Thomas de 

 Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, in Norfolk Earl Soham, formerly 

 Soham Barres, was re-named after Boger de Bigod, Earl of Norfolk ; 

 and in Essex Earls Bury, part of the manor of Fernham, was 

 separately named after G-eofTrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, and 

 Earls Colne took its name from the De Veres, Earls of Oxford, 

 who also gave the name Earls Court to their residence in the manor 

 of Kensington. 



At the time when the prefix was first added to Erlestoke the 

 manor was in the hands of the family of Fitz-Herbert, to whom it 

 had come by marriage with the De Mandeville family. 1 It is not 

 clear how the De Mandevilles acquired the manor for no charter 

 containing or referring to the grant has been found, and the only 

 reference to the transaction by which it passed from the hands of 

 the King is contained in the Curia Begis roll of the reign of Hen. 

 III., 2 recording the suit instituted by the King for a restoration of 

 the manor on the ground that it was ancient demesne of the crown 

 wrongfully alienated during the reign of Henry I. If the alienation 

 was the act of the King it might be supposed that having granted 

 it to some Earl who had afterwards incurred his displeasure, he 

 had escheated it and re-granted it to the De Mandeville family, 

 who had always been in his favour. In such a case William, Earl 

 of Morton, who had many properties in the west of England, may 

 have been the first tenant of Erlestoke and have lost it with 

 his other lands when he was banished in 1104, but an act of 



1 This name suggests a connection with the Earls of Essex, of which, how- 

 ever, there is as yet no evidence. 



2 No. 151, 37 and 38, Hen. III. n. 16. 



